So you're looking to do your own search engine optimisation? Awesome! You're definitely a Kiwi, I feel like we always need to give it a DIY go - infact that's exactly what I did before I started my career in SEO (search engine optimisation).

Doing SEO in New Zealand is slightly different to what American and other international websites might tell you. For example, they go heavily into long tail keyword research. In New Zealand, since we don't have as many searches, we can't quite do that. We do need to be a little bit more generic but look at me. I'm already skipping ahead because I'm too excited.

There are two core areas to focus on if you're looking to do search engine optimisation. The first is everything on your website. I won't get too much into this since this is where it gets slightly technical but here are some good things to keep in mind.

How to do your own off-page search engine optimisation:

So that covers the basics of on-site. For off-site search engine optimisation, this is all about capturing those easy links back to your site. The fastest and easiest way to do this is to build business citations (business directories in other words).

If you can do the steps above with your site, you should have yourself ranked for your personal branded keyword in no time. If you can build yourself 30-50 citations, you should be ranking on the first page in no time. This is called Local SEO.

SEO is all about clarity for both users and for Google, so if a user can navigate easily around your site and find everything they're after, then you'll be rewards with higher rankings and an increase in visibility.

A final note is in New Zealand we really only focus on Google. In the States, Bing comprises of around 30% of search traffic which is decent. In New Zealand this is only 3-5%.

I hope that helps you move towards dominating your rankings and increasing your visibility in front of your audience!

If you want a checklist to run through and step-by-step instructions, be sure to download the SEO Cheat Sheet. We put it together for this very purpose and you'll find yourself saving $1,500 if you do it all yourself!